Location: NIGERIA
Heritage Foluwakemi Sanmi-Lawal founded Her Dream Initiative with a clear purpose: help girls recognize gender-based violence, understand consent and personal boundaries, and know exactly where to turn when harm occurs. Her work centers prevention because information, delivered early, can shape choices, confidence, and safety for years to come.
When knowledge is missing, risk multiplies
Before the outreach began, Her Dream Initiative’s team saw the pattern in pre-test surveys: many students had limited understanding of forms of sexual violence, consent, healthy boundaries, and reporting channels. That gap is dangerous, especially for adolescents navigating school, home, and community pressures.
Her Dream Initiative designed its school outreach program as a preventive, educational intervention to address rising sexual violence affecting adolescents in Northern Nigeria, combining structured awareness sessions, student-friendly materials, and simple evaluation tools to track learning.
What the seed grant made possible
With The Pollination Project’s support, Her Dream Initiative directly reached 1,175 girls through outreach activities hosted in nine schools across Northern Nigeria. The project also invested in accountability, using pre- and post-test surveys that showed a clear increase in students’ understanding of gender-based violence concepts, stronger awareness of prevention, and greater confidence in reporting and seeking help.
In addition, the team logged 450 volunteer hours to deliver sessions, support data collection, and ensure students could participate fully, even when language barriers required extra guidance.
A guide that turns information into a lifeline
A defining output of the grant was the Sexual Violence Survivor Guide, a student-centered resource with clear steps for safety and next actions, adapted by state and translated into local languages in some communities. It offers practical direction on seeking medical care, identifying trusted adults, and accessing support, while reinforcing a message survivors deserve to hear without conditions: “It is never your fault. You are not alone. Speak up. Speak out.”
By placing this guide directly in students’ hands, the seed grant helped transform awareness into real options, so a girl facing harm is less likely to be isolated, uncertain, or pushed into silence.
When crisis hits, the rights of these girls become more endangered. This has sparked a conversation amongst the volunteers on the need to involve women and girls in peace and security processes across Northern Nigeria.
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